380w ago - Beautifully rendered with an above-average plot, Bioware's new sci-fi epic for the Xbox 360 still turns out to be a disappointingly overhyped encore to Microsoft's main holiday act in gaming, Halo 3.

An Old-School Adventure Masquerading as a Role-Playing Game

If Halo 3 was Microsoft's star performance, BioWare's Mass Effect is this holiday season's encore. Mass Effect is probably the most anticipated role-playing game of the year by anyone who dug the company's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and/or Jade Empire. In any case, I expect the Xbox 360 to take the silver in hardware sales (though by a relatively narrow margin over Sony) and the gold by a handsome margin in holiday software sales.